


What Is Love?

by malinaldarose (coralysendria)



Category: Logan's Run (TV)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 04:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5077198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coralysendria/pseuds/malinaldarose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan and Rem discuss love on the night before a wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Is Love?

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Marriage square on my Trope Bingo Round Something-Or-Other (5?) card.

Logan 5 stood on the balcony outside his quarters. He looked up at the night sky, remembering the first time he had seen the vast blackness, the uncountable glittering pinpricks of light, the sweep of what the Ancients had called the Milky Way. He had been mesmerized by the beauty, humbled by the vastness. There were no stars in the City of Domes where he had spent the first twenty-six years of his life. He had learned them over the years since his escape; Rem had taught him how the Ancients had viewed them, how they had harnessed the frightening vastness by placing in it their gods and heroes and monsters. It was comforting to think that the stars would be there for his children just as they had been for those ancient peoples.

The android Rem moved up to stand beside Logan and assumed his own attitude of contemplation. "Big day tomorrow," he said after a moment. "You should be resting."

Logan shrugged. "I couldn't sleep. What about you? Shouldn't you be resting? After all, you're the one getting married. I'm just the best man."

Rem turned his head in Logan's direction. While to Logan, Rem was a dim figure picked out in varying degrees of black and grey, he knew that Rem could see him just as well as if it were bright noon. "You should be well aware by now, Logan, that I do not need rest, merely the occasional recharge, and I will not be due for that for some time."

"So what brings you here tonight, then, Rem? Nervous?"

"Certainly not!" Rem had always claimed -- and continued to do so -- that as an android, he felt no emotions as humans understood them. Yet he had certainly mastered the art of sounding offended. Logan tipped his head back and looked at the stars again to hide his smile, waiting. 

"I will confess," Rem said, after a while, "that there _is_ a certain flutter in my solenoids. But I would hardly characterize that as being nervous."

"Of course not," Logan agreed, trying to keep his amusement out of his voice. "Still...marriage is a big step. Not everyone is suited to it."

There was no such thing as marriage in the City of Domes. Men and women were not expected to spend their lives together, but to spend their time in what Logan had come to recognize as empty pleasures. Their complete freedom was a lie; the leash that controlled them and eventually led them to Carousel. The very words "husband," "wife," and "marriage" were unknown inside the City; they were among the concepts that Logan and Jessica had learned only after encountering other societies.

"It seems to have suited you and Jessica," Rem observed. "I do not think my attachment to Ariana is any less deep than yours to Jessica."

"Do you love Ariana?" Logan expected Rem's usual response when asked about emotions. He was surprised when Rem shrugged instead.

"What is love?" The android's tone was thoughtful. "Is it the quickening of your heart rate when you see Jessica's face? The way that you cannot stand to be parted from one another for more than a few hours? The ache you feel when you are?"

"It's all of those things," Logan answered readily. "And more."

"My heart rate cannot change," Rem said, "because I have no heart. But my solenoids flutter when she is near. Sometimes, there are quite literal sparks. She is constantly in my mind, and I find pleasure in being near her. I want to be near her as much as I possibly can for as long as I possibly can."

Logan smiled and clapped Rem on the shoulder. "That, my friend, is definitely love."

Rem nodded. "I thought it might be."

They returned to their silent contemplation of the stars.


End file.
